The Philosophy of History

I read this book for a graduate class in history. Hegel's philosophy of history is perhaps the most fully developed philosophical theory of history that attempts to discover meaning or direction in history. Hegel incorporates a deeper historicism into his philosophical theories than his predecessors or successors. According to Hegel, the events whose story is told by political and legal history can be given a philosophical interpretation that will bring out its philosophical meaning. He does this himself in his lectures on the Philosophy of History. He views it to be a central task for philosophy to comprehend its place in the unfolding of history. History is for Hegel the development of Freedom, or rather, of the consciousness of Freedom. History is the process by which Spirit becomes conscious of itself. Individual thinkers, artists, and historical actors are primarily the means or instruments by which the collective spirit (God in the world) becomes conscious of truth. Hegel constructs world history into a narrative of stages of human freedom, from the public freedom of the polis and the citizenship of the Roman Republic, to the individual freedom of the Protestant Reformation, to the civic freedom of the modern state. He attempts to incorporate the civilizations of India and China into his understanding of world history, though he regards those civilizations as static and therefore pre-historical. He constructs specific moments as "world-historical" events that were in the process of bringing about the final, full stage of history and human freedom. For example, Napoleon's conquest of much of Europe is portrayed as a world-historical event doing history's work by establishing the terms of the rational bureaucratic state. Hegel finds reason in history; but it is a latent reason, and one that can only be comprehended when the fullness of history's work is finished. Many in Western Europe saw Europe or the Western European nations as the pinnacle of historical development, poised to carry their mission civilisatrice to Asia, Africa, Oceania. Yes, they could say, ancient civilizations had contributed to the eventual emergence of modern European civilization, but Europe had integrated what was valuable in those ancient insights into a higher form and it could now turn around and offer this higher form of culture to the rest of humanity who had remained "backward" and "underdeveloped." Hegel has very little to say about the New World. He acknowledges that the Native Americans have been overtaken by Europeans, thus the New World is a continuation of the Old World in its civilization and culture. He sees history progressing in America (populated by Englishmen), but finds that it has not matured yet. He sees America as a growing, prosperous, and industrious nation with a population that is a federation of people who love freedom. However, the nation is not politically fixed yet and he thinks, "a real state and a real government wil

Hegel's lectures on History (along with those of his on Law) probably represent the most accessible introduction to the thought of this very important German idealist. Hegel's ideas on history and social organisation and Law had a critical influence on many key 19th and 20th century Philosophers, including Karl Marx, Isaiah Berlin and Karl Popper. While some philosophers followed Hegel, many also vigorously rejected his ideas and thought, and it is only more recently Hegel is undergoing a kind of rehabilitation in Philosophy. This reaction though is understandable since Hegel is a very difficult philosopher to both read and understand. His prose is certainly in my experience the most awfully written and most obscure of any philosopher, and much of the time Hegel seems to be writing nonsense which makes little sense (especially in his more idealist works like phenomeology of spirit). It is understandable then why Schopenhauer called him a 'charlatan' who spouted nothing but 'sophistry' which ruined the intellectual background of Germany, and Bertrand Russell said his philosopy stems from a 'set of simple logical mistakes.' Nevertheless Hegel is a great Philosopher, and the fact he is extremely obscure does not invalidate some very original and profound and interesting ideas which are to be found in his philosophy, especially in his notion of the dialectic, of Spirit manifesting itself through history and historical events, of his interesting reaction to Kant, his ideas on Art and the reactions to his philosophy from students like Marx. His idealism also influenced important philosophers like Fichte and Schelling in the 19th century, and in the 20th century idealists such as McTaggart, F.H. Bradley, and J.N. Findlay, who built on his thought and provided valuable new philosophical ways of thinking about the Absolute and in bringing religion and mystical experience back into a better relationship with Philosophy, given much of Philosophy since the time of Hume has savagely attacked religion as meaningless nonsense. In the 21st century, it is probably Hegel's thought on ethics, art, history and religion which have the most relevance.

Hegel didn't see the historical events as mere chances or something that happen by itself.. He believes that there has to be reason that cause all the historical events.. That reason is the struggle for freedom of human kinds. This central theme is presented through out the book. The way Hegel present the history is not through chronological order but he present it as being from East to West. This representation of the his history is very interesting in itself. By the time that Hegel wrote Philosophy of History, China was still under imperial rule therefore chinese could have much of the freedom. One of the criticism that I have on Hegel is that he threat the Far East as the strange and unrelated area.. Next interesting point that I found in this book is that the western civilization start from Greek.. (I definitely agree with him because Greek is the birth place of western philosophy, art, and politics).. By the time Roman take over the Europe, the center of culture m! ove from Athens to Rome..(Here, again everything moved from East to West). During the Roman Era, there were struggles of people against imperialism... In the sections about Roman, he wrote about the development of Christianity. As an advocated Christian, Hegel believed that Christianity is the divined political plan for people to be free from Roman Emperor.. (That's my interpretion of the Hegel's section on Christianity. It may be different from Hegel original idea) The last section he used Germany as the example of how modern nation evolved. In other word, he traced the history of Germany from barbaric period, to age of Holy Roman Empire, to the era of Germanic empire.. The transition from Holy Roman Empire to the Germanic Empire is the struggle for freedom from Catholic church by Germanic states...

Hegel's Philosophy of History is his easiest book to read. He angered some people by saying that History is Freedom, and so those countries which did not have Free States (in 1821, the year he wrote his book) were not truly part of History but part of the Pre-historic period. He begins with a narrative of Africa in 1821 which was steeped in Slavery, both internal and external. He stated that all nations were once at this level of Pre-history, where no king could last more than a year. But China was the first nation to make One but only One Person free, namely, the Emperor. This was the beginning of History. From this point Hegel traces those nations which increased Freedom slowly - from Egypt to Assyria to Babylon to Persia to Greece to Rome to Spain and then Europe as we know it today. The Idea of a Free Republic was born in Greece, but was first made material in Rome. Caesar opposed the Republic because he knew that the fullness of time had not yet come for it; so he opened up barbarian Europe instead. The Free Republic eventually grew to a point where a great, courageous World Historical Individual, Napoleon Bonaparte, overthrew the Medieval structures and paved the way for the eventual abolition of Slavery. Hegel was an Abolitionist and lived to see England and Spain renounce Slavery, but died long before Lincoln, so his view of the USA was pretty pessimistic.